Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Plans you're not supposed to talk about

dynomight.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 675 posts

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#161

Post by jodrellblank »

calibas wrote: post #32
jeffreyrogers wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every human being to do nothing at all. The planet doesn't care what lives on it or if anything lives at all. There is no best for the planet outside of goals humans set for it. > It's so odd that all our frantic doing is what's thrown the Planet out of balance The planet has never been in balance. And even if we stop anthropogenic climate change something else wi…

FYI, when people are talking about helping "the Planet" they're not talking about lifeless rocks, they're talking about preserving the diversity of life on the Planet. And by balance I mean not precipitating another extinction event. Sure, they're going to happen anyway eventually, but we probably shouldn't cause an extra one if we don't have to...

> "they're talking about preserving the diversity of life on the Planet."

Something utterly worthless to humans unless humans are part of said diversity. There is no advantage to a planet full of marmosets patiently waiting for the Sun to die. We are all there is in the way of serious tool users, and quite possibly now we've drained the surface coal and oil and tin and iron, all there ever will be. There isn't time left in the world to go through another fossil fuel era, another Dinosaur era, another mammal evolution.

Edgelords and their "Humans are a cancer, everything would be better if we die out" are advocating not just human genocide but committing all known life in the Universe to end. We are currently the only known chance of anything getting off-world, ever. Any people, any machines, any bacteria, any fungus, any tardigrades, anything. We should be flinging life at Europa, Venus, Martian polar regions, asteroids, as much as we can. If life could be screaming at us to save it from being single-planetary, it would be.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#162

Post by AnimalMuppet »

taejavu wrote: post #138
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccines don't prevent those things. They do lower the probability - or at least, that's the claim. That's not perfection, but it's not nothing, either. As to whether the claim is accurate... that's outside the scope of this comment.

Who's claiming that? My impression is that official sources are now acknowledging it does nothing but lessen the chance of serious illness & hospitalisation for the person taking it.

That's not my impression. My impression is that official sources are claiming that it reduces the chances that you get it at all, and maybe reduces the chances that you'll pass it on as well.

I have never (that I recall) seen an official source saying what you claim. (Mind you, I'm not saying that you're wrong in your assessment of the effectiveness of the vaccine. I'm not even saying that you're wrong in your read of what officials are claiming - just that I have never seen it.)

Can you point me to someone official making that claim? And, what country are you in?

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#163

Post by Swenrekcah »

BeetleB wrote: post #133
Swenrekcah wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some part of modern consumption however is not really making lives any more enjoyable at all, for instance all the low quality clothes and items sold in large quantities to fill some internal void for people for a short while. If there was for instance a carbon tax on the raw materials and transport then I’m fairly sure the price difference between high quality and low quality items would become minimal so people wou…

>for instance all the low quality clothes and items sold in large quantities to fill some internal void for people for a short while. For clothes, for the purchaser, have you done the math to show it isn't worthwhile? I find it's cheaper[1] to buy low quality clothes than to buy high quality ones in the long run. I'd buy shoes that would last only 6-9 months, but paying double wouldn't make them last twice as long, e…

True and I should have worded it differently. Not necessarily cheap but low quality. You can get designer stuff at high price points that are not really much better quality, just better marketed.

It’s hard to find really high quality clothes today because there just isn’t the incentive to provide them when all the crap can be sold and segmented into fashion seasons so you “have” to buy a new jacket now.

This is not just clothes of course, I’m for example very susceptible to feeling a need to buy the latest gadget because it has more RAM. I might need it someday. Maybe.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#164

Post by kixiQu »

the-dude wrote: post #134
johnchristopher wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the point I am trying to make (granted not very eloquently) starts out from this idea [1] that humans are kind of crazy, and that maybe this crazyness is what makes us so successful; so I put that too much safety may undo this crazyness, it puts it to sleep? You are blurring the lines between taking a personal risk in one occasion at a specific time and taking the risk of not wearing a mask or washing hands or cook…

What is wrong with cooking meat?

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2769029/

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#165

Post by shkkmo »

taejavu wrote: post #138
AnimalMuppet wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The vaccines don't prevent those things. They do lower the probability - or at least, that's the claim. That's not perfection, but it's not nothing, either. As to whether the claim is accurate... that's outside the scope of this comment.

Who's claiming that? My impression is that official sources are now acknowledging it does nothing but lessen the chance of serious illness & hospitalisation for the person taking it.

That claim is pretty widespread and ubiquitous among the scientific literature. You might consider reassessing your news sources if they have been telling you otherwise.

I believe that the emphasis on the reduction of the chance of serious illness & hospitalization is because people believe that all the people who would be motivated to get vaccinated out of altruism are already vaccinated.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#166

Post by Swenrekcah »

slg wrote: post #137
Swenrekcah wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, I don't buy that. People wouldn't be "giving up" anything for the benefit of the planet by not buying a new pair of shoes every month or something. It would actually be for their own benefit to be more content. That's kind of the whole problem, the people who would lose are the sellers and advertisers who cultivate the insecurities in discontent people for their own benefit, not the consumers.

Just to be clear, you are saying that you know what makes people happy better than people know themselves. And even if you are right, people's current behavior shows that they disagree with you on what is best. Therefore they won't voluntarily give up buying new shoes. You will have to force people to agree with you and this type of paternalistic "I know what is best for you better than you do" leadership is rather d…

I’m not talking about forcing anyone to do anything.

I talked about carbon taxes to make people pay the true price of their consumption so the market forces can find the right equilibrium, which they can’t when the price doesn’t include all the information.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#167

Post by reducesuffering »

reactspa wrote: post #135
bsedlm wrote: post #48

this is the best explanation I've even seen for a positive aspect to secrecy. yet I still distrust secretive practices on principle, because evil deeds require secrecy 99% of the time

> You consider telling everyone “OK, here are some promises that we’ve designed to maximize how embarrassing it would be for us to break up”, but decide it’s better not to make that explicit. I didn't understand this sentence. Anyone care to clarify please? (E.g., what would be an example of a promise that would be embarrassing?) Thanks.

It's talking about wedding vows during a marriage ceremony where the couple says in front of many people about how much they will do for the other person "for better or worse, in sickness and health", "til death do us part." If you divorce, it's embarrassing because you betrayed all those public exclamations.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#168

Post by BurningFrog »

calibas wrote: post #7

>Cutting back on CO2 emissions would clearly work, but it’s expensive and painful. This is so painfully backwards. "Saving the Planet" doesn't mean spending tons of money and doing tons of work, quite the opposite. The absolute best thing for the Planet would be for every human being to do nothing at all. Stop driving, stop working, stop eating entirely, and then things will quickly recover. Obviously that's a bit ex…

If your ideal world is for humanity to be exterminated, I'm afraid we are mortal enemies.

If it's not, you need to express yourself clearer.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#169

Post by reducesuffering »

javajosh wrote: post #88

Regarding plan 1, the prenup is the most romantic idea of all. Why? Because you stay together not out of fear, but out of love. Sadly, there are limits to what prenups can do (they can't apply to time-sharing the children, in most states). Note that not getting married is not enough; common law marriage applies if you live together long enough. As for the rest, it's disturbing and I don't want to think about it. So I…

I agree. I don't understand how people could want to be with someone who's only there because of ulterior reasons to love: public embarrassment, finances, messy legal proceedings. In a relationship, you are purely there because you want to be with another person. I get that a marriage adds stability, but it's because it makes extends a relationship into situations that only exist because of other reasons.

Re: Plans you're not supposed to talk about

#170

Post by haswell »

ethanbond wrote: post #47
haswell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is rather pessimistic, trivializes the argument and assumes that it’s directed only at individuals. Doing less doesn’t have to mean it’s only an individual’s responsibility. Applying this more broadly, doing less is a category of potential solutions to much bigger problems. Relying on individuals will never move the needle very far.

This is the opposite of assuming it’s directed only at individuals. I’m saying we are already doing this, systematically, at massive scale. What it looks like is people fleeing particular regions, turned from farmer or industrial worker to… “doing less.” It looks like mass migration and failed states. This happens either because the economics cease to make sense (the sort of levers any systematic solution would have…

You said none of this in the prior comment.

> In either case, it’s clear that the “doing less” approaches are bound to start with the people who are already doing the least.

This is not clear, and does not logically follow anything that preceded it.

If you constrain "doing less" to a very specific and restrictive definition of who/what this means, then perhaps. But as a general approach to solving certain kinds of problems, this can take many forms:

- Policy decisions

- Social movements

- Creation of new product categories that remove prior requirements for more

And it's also not necessarily always just a "thing", but a mindset, or another lens through which to consider options for solving burning problems.

Post reply on HN